From February 5-16, 2009, the 17th Annual Pan African Film & Arts Festival (PAFF) returned to Los Angeles. Each year PAFF presents over 175 films from various locations around the globe that showcase the diversity and complexity of people of African descent. The DGA has served as a sponsor of the festival for more than a decade.

As part of our sponsorship, on Monday, February 9, the Guild presented "A Conversation with Gina Prince-Bythewood." Prince-Bythewood wrote and directed the award-winning feature Love & Basketball, the HBO film Disappearing Acts, and recently directed the feature The Secret Life of Bees. Terilyn A. Shropshire who served as Prince-Bythewood's editor on both Love & Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees moderated the conversation.

On Thursday, February 12, the PAFF filmmakers were invited to a brunch in the atrium of DGA headquarters where DGA director-member Tim Story (Barbershop, Fantastic Four, Hurricane Season) and DGA African-American Steering Committee Co-Chair Van Hayden spoke to them about the advantages of DGA membership.